Gazette Daily News Briefing, June 6 and June 7
This is Stephen Schmidt from the Gazette digital news desk and I’m here with your update for the weekend of June 6th and June 7th.
Your weather forecast is boring in the just way you would want June weather to be boring. According to the National Weather Service, Saturday will feature a high of 84 degrees in the Cedar Rapids area with mostly sunny skies. Saturday night it will turn mostly cloudy, with a low of around 62 degrees. On Sunday it will be mostly sunny, with a high near 86 degrees. It will become slightly windy Sunday during the day, with a southeast wind of 15 mph gusting as high as 25 mph. But nothing else exciting should happen weather wise. Sunday night it will be mostly clear with a low of around 69 degrees.
Iowa City protesters returned to Interstate 80 for the third time in three nights to protest racial injustice and improper policing Friday night, temporarily halting traffic all three nights. The first night ended up in them being dispersed by tear gas and flash bang grenades. On the second, a small band was allowed to protest on the overpass above the Interstate. On Friday night, the Iowa State Patrol shut down the highway to allow protesters sit and make demands, which included ending the curfew in Coralville, removing police officers from the local school district buildings, and redirecting some funding from police departments to social services.
They then left peaceably and returned to the university Pentacrest.
Iowa City’s protest was one of several this week sparked by the death of George Floyd, a black man, while in the custody of Minneapolis police on May 25. There are more protests scheduled in Eastern Iowa on Saturday.
A 27-year-old man took a plea deal admitting that he had killed two teenagers and wounded two others outside of a smoke shop in southwest Cedar Rapids in May of 2019. Andre Richardson was offered the plea deal after a gun was found between the two teenagers in the back, which could have complicated a jury trial, allowing Richardson to claim self defense. Instead he will face a series of charges, including multiple counts of second-degree murder and willful injury. Linn County Attorney Jerry Vander Sanden said Friday that the sentences effectively add up to a life sentence, while many family members at the trial expressed dismay, saying Richardson was not punished severely enough and that they had been misled by Vander Sanden.
The total number of Iowans hospitalized for COVID-19 fell to 299 Friday, dropping the number below 300 for the first time since April 25 and marking the ninth consecutive day of decreasing hospitalizations. The number of patients in intensive care units and on ventilators also fell, marking a continued positive trend for the disease in the state.
The death total did near 600 on Friday, however, with 597 reported deaths so far from the disease.
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Have a good weekend everyone.
